Topic: HP

Hewlett Packard, the world's largest PC maker, has announced plans to spin off its PC business and scrap its recently acquired webOS smartphone and TouchPad tablet business to focus on software and services.

Faced with growing inventory due to sluggish sales, the makers of tablets competing with Apple's iPad are said to continue to cut prices in order to reduce losses, potentially sparking an industry-wide price war, according to a new report.

After teasing a "major news announcement" for the company, HTC CEO Peter Chou revealed that it has acquired a $300 million majority stake in audio technology company Beats Electronics, with the first HTC product to implement Beats technology due out later this year.

After receiving positive response to a temporary $100 price cut on its webOs-based TouchPad tablet, HP has decided to make the discount permanent as it aims for the No. 2 spot in the tablet market, behind Apple's iPad.

Windows-based PC makers looking to challenge Apple's extremely successful line of ultra-lightweight MacBook Airs with designs based on Intel's "Ultrabook" platform are losing hope that they'll be able to do so and still turn a profit on sales of the notebooks any time this year.

Former Palm CEO and current HP executive Jon Rubenstein sent a letter to employees addressing lukewarm reviews of its new TouchPad tablet, and suggested that criticism of its webOS operating system is similar to complaints reviewers had with early versions of Mac OS X.

An HP executive said Thursday that the TouchPad tablet is not meant to take the market away from the iPad and is instead aimed at the enterprise, while a new report claims Apple is set to overtake HP next year as the world's leading portable PC vendor, if iPads are taken into account.

Apple has a tall order ahead of it if the company ever plans to challenge some of its larger rivals in personal computer market in terms of volume shipments, but the profit the Mac maker currently takes home from the sale of each system may already be enough to spook its competition.

A new survey ranks Apple as the world's most valuable brand, worth an estimated $153 billion, beating mainstays like Coca-Cola, BMW and Disney, as well as tech rival and the previous No. 1 company, Google.